The present invention relates to telecommunications networks designed to handle both fixed subscribers and mobile subscribers.
In current telecommunications networks, fixed subscribers are managed by so-called LE (Local Exchanges) which contain their service details and manage their physical access.
Mobile subscribers are managed by specific switches known as MSC (Mobile Switching Centres). Since these mobile subscribers do not have a static connection point like fixed subscribers, their service data are stored in nominal data bases. Within GSM and similar systems, these nominal data bases are called HLR (Home Location Registers). The MSC switches offer services to mobile subscribers on the basis of their service profiles. Some mobile switches have a local data base of visiting subscribers (VLR: Visitor Location Register), which contains copies of the nominal data base records relating to the mobile subscribers serviced. This architecture remains specific to mobile subscribers and does not allow fixed subscribers with no mobility requirement to be integrated.
An operator who wishes to have both types of subscriber (fixed and mobile) must have two dedicated infrastructures: one for fixed subscribers and the other for mobile subscribers, or develop a service logic for the fixed subscribers and a similar one for the mobile subscribers.
In practice, even if they are managed from a fixed network by means of an intelligent network (IN) architecture, the mobile subscribers are not integrated in the access switches (LE) and their service profiles are held instead in a nominal data base referred to as SDP (Service Data Point). The service logic used to manage mobility and offer these mobile subscribers the additional services are located in a SCP (Service Control Point), i.e. a platform of the intelligent network which controls and assists the switches of the fixed network in offering services intended for these mobile subscribers.
To date, hosting mobile subscribers on a fixed network infrastructure has entailed the need for specific redundant developments in order to take account of these new subscribers. For example, at the level of the SCP, it is necessary to duplicate a certain number of functions and services dedicated to the management of these subscribers.
A solution of this type is not integrated at all, i.e. it does not make use of existing functions and services in the infrastructure. Indeed, processing of the services is handled by the SCP, although there is an equivalent function for fixed subscribers in the LE.
EP-A-0 660 672 discloses a telecommunications network to which mobile terminals are likely to be connected via different switching systems. Different service profiles are associated with the mobile terminals in accordance with the switching system with which they are registered. In particular, the mobile terminal may be associated with a fixed terminal with which it shares a directory number. In the corresponding service profile, certain characteristics are associated with the mobile terminal only, and other ones are associated with the shared directory number. The system described in that document involves the management of several service profiles for a same terminal.
An object of the present invention is to define a solution that will enable mobile subscribers to be integrated in the LE for fixed subscribers and offer the same services and same network functions to both types of subscriber.
Accordingly, the invention proposes a telecommunications network comprising access switches, each of which has a table containing service data relating to fixed subscribers having terminals connected thereto on a permanent basis and at least one nominal data base for mobile subscribers, capable of accessing the network via a plurality of the access switches. For each of the mobile subscribers, the nominal data base contains service data of the same nature as the service data relating to fixed subscribers and mobility management data.
The service data table of each access switch, via which mobile subscribers can access the network, is arranged to receive, in addition to the service data relating to the fixed subscribers, service data relating to the mobile subscribers connected to the network via said access switch, which are uploaded from the nominal data base during procedures to locate said mobile subscribers with the access switch.
The service data relating to the mobile subscribers are contained in the same tables as those relating to fixed subscribers and managed by the same logics. From the user""s point of view, this has the advantage of making the same services available, regardless of their nature (fixed or mobile) and/or regardless of what type of access is used (wire or radio). Furthermore, a network operator can optimise his developments by offering them to all types of subscriber (fixed or mobile) and all types of access (wire or radio).